


Selicha

by joey



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Community: daysofawesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9183727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joey/pseuds/joey
Summary: Janeway struggles with guilt over her decisions in the Delta Quadrant.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. Janeway and all canon Voyager characters belong to Paramount. Chaim, Cherel, and the other "Talking Stick/Circle" original characters belong to Peg Robinson and Macedon, and God bless them for bringing Chaim and company into the world.
> 
> Author's Notes: This story is set in the alternate universe of the "Talking Stick/Circle" series, originally posted to Usenet's alt.startrek.creative newsgroup between 1995 and 1997. The AU diverged from canon somewhere around the end of season 2; "Resolutions" never happened and very little of season 3 is to be assumed except "Basics II". Personally, I much prefer this universe to the actual series (Seven of Nine never existed in my world.) If you've never read this seminal work, I strongly recommend you do. I have archived local copies at my Web site in the hopes the series will never die. My little attempt at fanfic riffing on TS/C is written with love and respect for Peg and Macedon's amazing work, and I hope if either of them finds this for some reason, that they know I intend no infringement upon their ideas. This is just my attempt to play around with their characters and their universe for a bit in honor of the new year.
> 
> Background: In this universe, Chakotay has started a storytelling circle, which meets weekly and becomes the focal point from which this crew tries to forge a new identity to face the long trip home. Janeway has allowed herself to form friendships with some of the crew, including Chaim, a Conservative Jew, and his Orthodox Bajoran wife, Cherel. I've fudged the timelines a bit in a couple of places, but hopefully it won't be noticeable by anyone except other big Star Trek nerds.
> 
> Written for the daysofawesome Jewish Characters Ficathon in 2011 (for some reason I can't find it on the LJ community any more, so what the hell, here it is). Unbeta'ed because I dashed it off while at work, so please forgive any rough patches. The prompt was 'guilt'. This is set somewhere around the "Talking Stick/Circle" story "Raisins and Almonds".
> 
> Special thanks to Rabbi Elaine Zecher, whose sermon for Yom Kippur 5766 was the inspiration for the reading of the Rabbi Zuysa story. Also to Peg and Macedon for their universe. And, always, forever, thanks and love and my heart to my beautiful, amazing love, my Miryam, who even in the midst of dealing with the horrors in her past finds a way to connect people with God. Mishka, you remain the most spiritually connected person I know, and you are still my inspiration. I love you.

The circle is sparse this evening. I notice it when I walk in -- the usual level of subdued chatter is even quieter than normal, and many of the regulars are absent. Of course they are -- they're tired as all hell, chewed up and spit out by... well, by the universe, really. Even the crew members who are here are moving slower, speaking slower, and more than one of them has dark circles under their eyes. Between Kes in a coma, the endless, exhausting trips planetside, and the tense unknowing of how we're going to run the gauntlet of mercenaries and pirate ships to leave orbit and continue home, it's a wonder anyone's here at all. Including me.

It's been a rough few weeks aboard Voyager. I should be sleeping, or going over the latest reports from the Doctor, or doing a million other things. Preferably sleeping. Not that I've been doing much of that lately. Sleeping comes hard these days. Too many ghosts. I'd rather be here with my people than alone in my quarters talking to the dead, or myself.

So here I sit, not quite relaxed and an inch away from sprawling in the chair I've pulled up just outside the circle, watching my crew. Chaim is here with Cherel, still hovering over her protectively, even weeks after the ordeal on the planet we still call "Egypt". He turns his head to whisper to her and I see his ubiquitous yarmulke pinned among his curls. It's white this time. Chaim has almost as many yarmulkes as Tom Paris has outrageous puns. Harry sits clustered with Tom and B'elanna, as usual, the three of them nested together on one of Tom's old blankets.

There's Chakotay, ambling into the room, arms loose, with the talking stick wrapped in one bear-like paw. He's in his favorite old, broken-in Maquis shirt, a dark explosion of color that reminds me of nothing so much as the "Hawaiian" shirts Neelix made everyone wear at that Godforsaken luau last year. On Chakotay, it works. I smile at him and he grins wearily, lifting the talking stick in a little wave of greeting.

He eases himself creakily halfway down and then drops with a huff the rest of the way to the floor, crossing his legs and resting the talking stick across his knees. Someone dims the lights as the chatter ceases and the crew turns expectantly to Chakotay.

"I don't know about the rest of you," he says, "but this has been a Coyote _month_." Laughter, the ragged, knowing kind of a people who've been dancing with Coyote and are tired of it. "Coyote is the Trickster. He loves to play with us mortals, and he's been having some fun with us lately." More laughter. "Old Coyote can follow us all the way to the Delta Quadrant, and sometimes I think he's the only immortal out here. He chased us through the wormhole, rounded us up, and threw us together, and he's been cackling at us like a hyaena ever since." He forces a laugh, but there's bitterness behind it.

A sting in the words. He doesn't mean to, God knows he's not trying to, but it doesn't matter; I hear the accusation even knowing he's not making it. My fault. I'm the captain. Ultimately, I'm responsible for it all... every death, every loss, mine to own. As much as I've battled it, tried to soothe it away with logic and reason, I still feel the weight of it. Nothing's been the same since we flung ourselves through the wormhole and I blew the array apart, saving the Ocampa, but dooming us to a lifetime of wandering.

It's not just the array. Every decision I make out here I feel like I'm chipping away at everything I believe. And every mistake I make has consequences, and, usually, a body count. I blew the damned array and changed everything. Tried to unify the ship and couldn't manage it, almost sparking a mutiny in the process. Tried to make an alliance and nearly set off a mass political assassination. Hell, I can't even find a cure for Kes without brokering a deal that makes me wonder who I am and if I have any soul left to sell, or if it's been burned away by the strange stars of the Delta Quadrant.

My responsibility. I'm the captain. I shift in my seat and sigh, blink back wetness prickling my eyes.

Chakotay speaks again, "I don't have a story in me tonight, even about Coyote. But I'll say this: we'll get the last laugh. Coyote doesn't win in the end. Who wants to go first?"

I brood and let the circle go on around me: stories, tall tales, a few songs, even a meditation, led by Siva Rajputra from Life Support. I shut my eyes along with everyone else, but I have a snowball's chance on Risa of achieving any sort of inner quiet. I open my eyes, rest my head on my hands, and watch the circle instead. I realize I'm not the only one whose attention is wandering: Chaim is sitting with his arms clasped loosely around his knees, rocking a bit, looking contemplatively off into the distance. He spots me, takes in my expression, which I'm sure is dour, and quirks an eyebrow at me. Before I can do anything other than frown, Siva quietly begins talking the circle up from the meditation. In a few minutes, everyone opens their eyes, blinking sleepily and shifting to relieve limbs going numb from sitting so long.

Chaism raises his hand for the talking stick, takes it when it's passed around the circle to him, and stands. "More Yiddish tall tales, Chaim?" Harry calls, grinning. Chaim grins back and says, "Not exactly, not today. Believe it or not, even _I_ can be serious." B'elanna chuckles and says, "That'll be the day." Chaim joins the laughter rippling around the circle and says, "Now, Be, don't underestimate me. Jews didn't last this long just on our charm and good looks. It's because of our tribal ways and ancient folk wisdom, too." He says this last with such a droll expression that even I find myself cracking a smile, and Chakotay, the other member of our circle expected to hand out "ancient tribal wisdom", is shaking with silent laughter. Cherel calls out, "So tell us a story already, boychik." Chaim, still chuckling, says, "All right, all right, settle down, people." He waits for the laughter to die down and continues.

"Back home on Earth, in New York, where I'm from, it's September. The moon is full and all my neighbors and family are in the middle of celebrating the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. You might know them as the High Holy Days. This moon is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah." He pronounces the Hebrew carefully for the benefit of those who, like me, hear only a jumble of unpronounceable syllables when hearing a language the universal translator won't decipher. "At this time of year, Jews all over the world spend these days celebrating the turn of the year. Funny thing about us Jews, though... no sooner do we wish each other a happy new year than we start thinking about the other end of the Days of Awe -- Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, in which we do teshuvah, we repent. We confess our sins and ask forgiveness. Yes, we start off the year by having a party and then we spend the next ten days preparing to repent for it. Jewish guilt." He grins as chuckles sweep the room. "I used to wonder, growing up, why we do that. Why don't we just have a party, make a few new year resolutions, and leave it at that? Why do we spend a day beating our chests and reciting all the ways in which we screwed up this past year? It surely seems more useful to party and eat, or at least more fun. When I was a teenager, I figured Yom Kippur was just another way Jews have to heap blame and guilt upon themselves. I didn't like Yom Kippur, didn't like the liturgy, the melodies -- I found it all depressing. As I grew up, I started to see the value in clearing the slate once a year, unburdening all your wrongdoing and asking forgiveness from other people for the ways in which you hurt them, do them wrong."

I close my eyes, feeling the eyes of the dead staring at me: Cavit. Stadi. Hogan, Bendera, McGarry. Tuvix. Maybe Kes. Others who I never even had the chance the know, and somehow those are the worst of all.

He shifts, turning the talking stick over in his hands absentmindedly, breaking my reverie. "But still, I didn't like all the chest-beating and the guilt. I tried to find value in Yom Kippur, even though with every passing year it felt more like a burden to repent of my sins, add to the long litany of the things I'd done wrong, kept doing wrong from year to year, the little hurts that add up over a lifetime. When I joined the Maquis, I just gave up on the whole thing. It was too much to expect me to confess my sins when we were fighting Cardassians every other week and running from the Fleet in between skirmishes. We all had enough done to _us_ in the Maquis, and were right pissed about it. I wasn't about to pile more guilt on myself.

"One day on Crazy Horse, on one of the few quiet days we had out there, I was stretched out on my bed flipping through a holobook, waiting for Cherel to get off duty, and I came across an anthology of Hasidic stories. I must have had that dusty old file lying around for years, piled up with all the other holobooks I got for my bar mitzvah years before. Jews love books, you wouldn't believe it. So I read through a few disinterestedly, and then I came upon one that caught my eye. I'm going to tell you that story now.

"This story is about Rabbi Zusya. Rabbi Zusya was a great rebbe, but he worried all the time about his behavior, constantly berating himself for doing this or that, or not doing the other thing. Since he was a great rebbe, he also wondered and worried about the ultimate Day of Judgment in the Olam Ha'ba, the world to come, when he would be called upon by the Holy One to account for his actions in this life. He tried to imagine himself standing before the Holy One. One day he was particularly eaten up with these thoughts and he paced up and down his room, consumed with guilt. Finally he fell upon his bed and dreamed.  
In his dream, he had died and was standing before God. He trembled, fell on his knees, and cried, 'Ribbono Shel Olam, Master of the Universe, forgive me for not being more like your mighty servants Moses and Abraham.'

"'Zuysa, child,' said God, 'I did not ask you to be Moses. Nor did I ask you to be like Abraham, your ancestor. But, Zuysa, I must know one thing: why were you not _Zuysa_?' Zuysa woke up and realized that the real sin he had committed was not coming before God as himself and living his life fully as himself, flaws and all.

"You may wonder what this has to do with Yom Kippur. Well, as I read that story, I realized something. I remembered that on Yom Kippur we Jews stand before the open ark with the Torah scroll inside and we ask God, 'Be gracious to us, for we have little merit. Treat us generously and with kindness, and be our help.' At the most intense moment in the entire liturgy of the Yamim Noraim, we acknowledge that we've screwed up -- but we still ask God to accept us exactly as we are, imperfect and full of flaws. Let me tell you, only Jews can get away with chutzpah like that. 'We're going to keep messing things up, God, but write us down in the Book of Life anyway. Take us as we are.'

"And that's when Yom Kippur stopped being about kicking myself and became just this: forgiving myself for not forgiving myself. For being judgmental of myself. For beating myself up when I fell short." He pauses and he looks straight at me over the heads of the silent crew members. "This is a new year for Jews. For all of us, if we want it to be. We don't have to wait until January on the Earth calendar to make a new start at forgiving ourselves for being human. In this, the year 6134, may we have more compassion and less judgment for not only our friends and family, but for ourselves. This year, may we do teshuvah for blaming ourselves for the things over which we have no control." He pauses again, and I catch a twinkle in his eye and the shadow of a wink.

"L'shanah tovah u'metukah, everyone... a good and sweet year. And g'mar chatimah tovah: may you be sealed for a good year in the Book of Life. Take care of yourselves." He bows, and there's a scattering of applause as he hands the talking stick to Chakotay and takes his seat beside Cherel.

A moment, a beat. I let out a breath I didn't know I've been holding. Another one. And I think to myself the barest whisper of a thought: _maybe it can be a new year for me, too._

Chakotay takes a breath and breaks the silence. "So, who's up next?"

The End


End file.
